Community Events

Bahareh Khezri – ‘Synthetic Nano/Microrobots: Revolutionizing Environmental Sensing and Remediation’

Addressing growing environmental concerns driven by industrialization and population growth, prof. Khezri research focuses on developing synthetic nano/microrobots as next-generation tools for pollutant detection and remediation. Utilizing 2D materials, advanced photocatalytic systems, and autonomous sensing platforms, they achieve self-propulsion, high reactivity, and versatile functionality for applications like water purification and pollution monitoring. This presentation highlights breakthroughs in light-activated, polymeric, and 2D nanostructure-based microrobots for energy harvesting, contaminant degradation, and real-time monitoring, while emphasizing sustainable materials and eco-friendly fabrication. These advances showcase the transformative potential of nano/microrobots for scalable and sustainable environmental solutions.

Samuel Sánchez – ‘The Role of Nanobots in the Future of Nanomedicine’

Engineering medical nanomotors/nanobots will imply the use of biocompatible materials and bio-friendly propulsion mechanisms. The strategy in his lab comprises the use of biocatalysts such enzymes for converting biologically available fuels, such as the urea contained in the urine, into a propulsive force. Moreover, nanoparticles’ chassis are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) material, FDA or EMA approved materials.

In his talk, Samuel presented how we bioengineer hybrid nanobots combining the best from the two worlds: biology (enzymes) and (nano)technology (nano- micro-particles) providing swimming capabilities, biocompatibility, imaging, multifunctionality and actuation in vitro and in vivo. He also presented some of the proof-of-concept applications of biocompatible nanobots such as the efficient transport of drugs into cancer cells and 3D spheroids, the imaging of swarms of nanobots in vivo in confined spaces like the bladder of living mice. Moreover, he shared his recent advances in the treatment of bladder cancer in mice using radionuclide-labelled nanobots and crossing mucus layers present in the colon of mice.

The age of Enlightenment was a period of profound philosophical transition in Europe. Writers and scholars discussed and promoted within a transnational Republic of Letters knowledge and ideas that were often radical for the time, challenging prevailing political and economic assumptions, and questioning the theological basis of many epistemological frameworks. This culture also extended the horizons of anthropological knowledge, through travel writing, natural history, and ethnographic data that circulated across the world at an unprecedented rate, prompting new scholarly perspectives. The first questions we will ask in this colloquium are: how European was the European Enlightenment, and can these global interactions be separated from colonial realities?

In the talk, they explored these questions through music, whose importance in this context has often been neglected. Diverse kinds of music were described and theorised by Europeans in diverse ways, with varying levels of reliability. This comparison contributed to the cultural self-fashioning of European identity. In fact, the term and concept of ‘European music’, often thought to be an age-old concept, had its birth in this period. They therefore explored this phenomenon by explaining how new definitions of ‘Europe’ as a distinct cultural identity were constructed, against a complex backdrop of philosophy, colonialism, scientific research, and ethnographic thought. The implications were, in fact, far-reaching, and remain with us.